Like online auctioneers on eBay, drug dealers are using sites on the so-called dark
web, like AlphaBay, to sell synthetic opioids to thousands of anonymous customers.
Just last month, the federal authorities announced charges against a six-person operation in Utah
that was purchasing fentanyl in bulk from China on the dark web and then pressing the powder into pills and selling the pills on the dark web to users in the United States.
“If i hadn’t been found because i was making a loud snoring sound (tongue rolled back in my throat) i’d be dead no doubt.”
Court documents show that in the last year, there have been more than two dozen arrests of American drug dealers who were operating
significant operations buying or selling synthetic opioids online, most of which were tied to specific overdose deaths.
But when it comes to synthetic opioids, many authorities tracking the traffic say
that dark web markets have quickly assumed a more prominent and frightening role.
Internet sales have allowed powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl — the fastest-growing cause of overdoses nationwide
— to reach living rooms in nearly every region of the country, as they arrive in small packages in the mail.